The 14th Scion

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I’d love to say I’m surprised that they didn’t bother to properly proofread the Gray Log...

...but I’m not.

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(Please consider buying me a coffee.) 

Those tiny hiragana/katakana are called “furigana,” and in most texts, are used as a reading aid to clarify the pronunciation of certain kanji.

However, some creative writers – like Hoshino – have taken to using furigana for other purposes. 

Hoshino’s typical trick is to make up brand new terminology by sticking multiple kanji together – the kanji each have a separate meaning, and when you combine them, they imply a certain combined meaning – and then using the furigana to create a pronunciation for the term. 

For example – Crown Clown 

The kanji that Hoshino gives for Crown Clown don’t make an actual word in Japanese. She uses the 道化 from 道化師, which means “clown,” and 神, the kanji for “god.”

The furigana she writes next to 神ノ道化 is クラウン・クラウン, which is “Crown Clown.” (You may notice that is actually the same word twice – it’s because in Japanese, “L” and “R” are the same sound.) 

So the reason people find Hoshino so frustrating to translate is because she’s, well, very difficult to translate. She pulls linguistic tricks like this all the time, and it’s very hard for non-native speakers to decode some of her terminology. (FYI, she also uses archaic language every now and then, just for added fun.)

TLDR: DGM translations make translators run for the hills. :)